Death Before Facebook

do.
    The room looked like a waiting room. It was small, with a wall of windows looking out on the back of another building. Worn couches and chairs had been placed awkwardly around the walls of the room, the upholstery hanging and discolored. Religious paintings in old wooden frames hung on the walls, probably from the days when the hospital had been a Catholic one. There was a porcelain water fountain in one corner, probably issuing barely a trickle. Kit was bent over it.
    Standing behind her, holding her free arm bent, pulling up on it, his other arm around Kit’s neck, was Cole Terry. As the fountain was low, he was forced to bend his knees awkwardly.
    “Let her go or I’ll shoot.”
    Instead, Cole pulled her upright and turned her around to face Skip. “No, you won’t.” The hand around her neck held a knife.
    “Feeding her pills, is that it?” said Skip. “Another suicide so soon after Lenore? Do you really think that’s going to fly, Cole? Especially now, with me here.” She brought the hand with the gun out of the bag, slowly, yet as threateningly as possible. “As soon as she eats the last pill, you’ve lost your hostage—what’s to stop me from blowing your head off?”
    Skip heard herself speak and marveled at it. Her voice sounded as calm as if she were talking to Cindy Lou about what to order for lunch. Yet her blood pounded in her head, her crevasses were clammy, her underarms, the little V’s between her fingers, her palms.
    Cole smiled at her. In the act of holding a knife to a woman’s neck, he simply turned his head and smiled as if meeting a neighbor picking up his morning paper. “You wouldn’t do that. I’m a father.”
    His iciness unnerved her. She felt her teeth clench, but she opened her mouth wide to speak, trying to stay as loose as possible. “You killed your stepson.”
    “Don’t be silly. He fell off a ladder.”
    “What about Lenore? Think about it. The least I’ve got is attempted murder against Kit. That means it’s over.”
    His eyes darted, calculating his chances, assessing what she’d said. “Put down the gun and I’ll hand her over.”
    “Let her go, Cole.”
    Almost before she’d finished speaking, he did, flinging her against Skip. Both women were caught off guard. Kit landed heavily against Skip’s chest and Skip, who didn’t have time to brace against the blow, stumbled backward.
    Cole leapt forward, chopped her wrist. She felt her fingers open, the gun fall out. She didn’t know which was louder, her own gasp or the clatter of the .38 on the tile floor.
    Calmly, Cole picked up the gun and leaned against the wall. He was smiling again. Kit and Skip untangled themselves.
    Where the hell is Security?
Skip wondered. Surely some of those people I upset must have called them.
    Yeah, but they would have known it was a police officer stomping around. Because I told them myself.
    And how would they find me anyhow?
    “It was this way,” said Cole, “on that long-ago day.” He spoke lazily, a man with all the time in the world. “When Kit found out I was having an affair with Marguerite, her idea of revenge was to tell Marguerite’s husband. But she didn’t know what a crazy bastard Leighton was, and he couldn’t have begun to know how nuts Kit was. He drew his gun and ordered Kit out of his house, but she tried to grab it. There was a struggle and she killed him.”
    “Dammit Cole, I didn’t even know Marguerite.”
    “My dear, of course you didn’t. Why would I introduce the two of you? But you were a jealous and determined woman, and Marguerite and I weren’t the most careful of adulterers. It was easy for you to find out what was going on—all you had to do was follow me.”
    He shifted his eyes to Skip. “I saw Marguerite across a crowded room, and she wasn’t even singing. She was sitting with a group of people. I can see her blowing smoke and throwing back her head to laugh. Remember smoke? Why doesn’t it seem romantic anymore?”
    There was something about the way he was telling the story that Skip found even more unnerving than the fact that he was holding a gun on her. As if he were the center of the universe. As if none of his actions had any consequence because they were all in the service of Cole Terry, king of the world. There was something bloodless about the man.
    They said that psychopaths were this way, but psychopaths, theoretically, did not connect with other human beings, and Cole obviously did. She had seen him